Tom founded Thomas E. Shea & Associates in 2005 to bring more personalized, focused and “boutique quality” advisory services to a select group of his board & senior executive clients, some of whom he has served as a “trusted business advisor” for as long as 20 years. He consults in the areas of total pay strategy, executive & board remuneration, equity, retention & incentive program design, competitive benchmarking analyses, HR effectiveness and pay & performance alignment. He has consulted with several hundred clients in diverse sectors over the past 30+ years, spanning VC-backed technology start-ups and family/privately-owned businesses through top 50 financial, government and “Fortune 500” organizations. Thomas E. Shea & Associates have expanded and formally aligned with a group of leading independent HR, Total Rewards & Performance Alignment advisors headquartered in the Boston and Baltimore-Washington metro areas. We share values, consistent methodologies, professional staff, research and commitment to the highest standards of quality & personalized client service. Together we provide:• Dozens of top professionals with complementary educational, technical & economic sector experience.• Lessons learned from hundreds of clients, including companies, associations, research & other tax exempt organizations & government bodies.• Hundreds of years of experience with strategy development, plan design, performance alignment, technical compliance, reasonableness opinions and competitive pay benchmarking reviews. Jobs and pay elements have ranged from total pay for CEOs, senior executives and independent Board members to sophisticated equity, cash incentives, retention, savings & retirement plans for executives & employees. As a highly integrated network, we provide the best of both worlds- large firm resources, reliability & experience with boutique quality, creativity and personalized service.

Independent Director, Chairman- HR & Compensation Committee and member-Audit CommitteeSecured2, Inc.(formerly CRAM Worldwide, Inc)Independent Director of this early stage data management & security software solutions company headquartered in the Minneapolis area until Company reorganization in early 2016.

Following retirement from the E&Y Partnership in my early 50's, my wife, Sharon, and I took the traditional Caribbean "victory cruise," I played a lot of golf and began a relatively short & unfulfilling "life of leisure." Missing the intellectual stimulation and collegial interaction of the consulting world, I explored a range of opportunities to bridge my two-year non-solicit period. I received several interesting job offers from leading consultancies, and chose the most entrepreneurial one with a nationally recognized boutique firm whose leaders were former associates from my Mercer days. I joined the Pearl Meyer & Partners division of Clark Consulting to Head their Boston area office, help found their national practice council and assist with their earliest efforts for integrating autonomous local practices into a more closely integrated national firm with a single set of standard practices, quality assurance and shared resources (consistent with strategic development, post merger integration & national practice leadership roles at Mercer and E&Y.) After the first year I was promoted to Senior Managing Director and a member of the Office of the Chairman. Having bridged my E&Y retirement non-solicit period, I left "PM&P" to found my own firm.

I was recruited from Mercer by E&Y's Chairman-elect shortly after the merger of "Ernst" and Arthur Young to help build the HR Consulting practice to complement the firm's audit, tax and management consulting services. My leadership roles over 12+ years included building new practices, fixing "broken" ones, national thought leadership & full "P&L" accountabilities within the HR Consulting, Tax, Entrepreneurial Services and Management Consulting divisions. Functional areas managed included compensation, benefits, HR Services for Emerging Growth Companies, Change Management, Personal Financial Counseling and Expatriate Tax /Global Equity consulting. I maintained full-time consulting, business development & client relations roles as a leading national/international consulting practitioner to a broad portfolio of firm clients in diverse industries. I became a national spokes person for executive pay, equity and pay for performance metrics & alignment as part of my national practice leader roles.

I was recruited to A.S. Hansen, Inc. to help build a Compensation & Pay for Performance consulting practice to complement their strong Actuarial & Benefits consultancies. From 1981-87, my leadership roles included promotions from Consulting Principal to NY Metro Compensation Practice Leader, then to NY Metro Area Office Managing Principal, & finally to Managing Principal of the Northeast Region with full "P&L" responsibility for > 100 professionals in all consulting disciplines and administrative/financial oversight for 3 office locations.Following their Hansen acquisition and my contributions to a successful NY Metro area post-merger integration in 1987-8, Mercer appointed me to Boston Office Head with full "P&L" responsibilities. Under my leadership, the office grew to become the largest and most profitable in the US, with 200+ professionals. We also started a compensation consulting practice which became New England's largest within 4 years. In addition to New England duties, I was selected by the CEO to Chair the newly formed National Compensation Practice Council and commence building an integrated national practice. He also selected me for leadership roles in strategic planning & professional development. I maintained full consulting, business development and client relations loads with both firms' largest clients. I became a recognized national expert in the areas of total rewards strategy, executive and Board compensation, stock & incentive plans, performance management and executive benefits/deferred compensation arrangements.

I was recruited by a search firm to join Wyatt & its Cole Consulting division to help a new Practice Leader found and build a HR, Performance Management & Rewards consulting practice in the Fairfield County/NY Metro area to complement their strong Actuarial & Benefits consultancies. My responsibilities included business development, client relations, project management and senior-level consulting design projects, implementation & administration guidance to a diverse group of public & private company clients. I quickly became the "go to" person for the Practice Leader, we enjoyed rapid success building the "green field" practice and I was promoted from Senior Consultant to Principal after my first year.The Practice Leader and I both left Wyatt before our second anniversary, largely because a new Office Managing Partner was appointed who was so focused upon his legacy Actuarial clients and risk averse that he was unwilling to continue the practice building sponsorship we received from his predecessor. I received offers from Hewitt and Hansen, accepting the latter because it was more entrepreneurial, with higher risks and potential rewards.

I was recruited by Aetna as a Management Trainee, and promoted through a series of progressively more senior jobs in the corporate IT Development, Process Improvement and Human Resource areas as a member of a "High Potential Employee" training & executive development program. In my final job, following completion of my MBA, I was selected as one of 3 start-up people to build & implement a HR Audit and Employee Relations department. We grew to nearly 20 professionals and I participated in, then led HR audits and "ER" training programs in approximately 30 branch offices and corporate functions over 2 years. I was promoted one or more grade levels each year to a position just below Officer, but wanted greater responsibilities than Aetna could quickly provide as the "management pyramid" ahead of me clearly narrowed. I was recruited to Hartford Steam Boiler, a mature 2,000 employee engineering services and specialty lines insurer, by a newly arrived SVP HR. He was recruited by the CEO to "transform" a traditional/reactive Personnel Dept. into a modern, proactive HR function. I was selected to be his "go to" HR Executive to manage the complete reorganization of the function and to develop & implement the necessary policies, programs, systems and talent to enable the vision. I managed all the major projects and personally recruited, developed and supervised the professional team responsible for a broad portfolio of corporate HR policies & programs, Recruiting, Training & Development, Employee Relations and HRIS/administration functions. We successfully completed the transformation in approximately 2 years , and the SVP HR was recruited to join an HR Consultancy. Shortly after he left, a retained search firm put me together with Wyatt for an opportunity to build a new consulting practice in Stamford, and do development work for a broad group of clients rather than "fire fighting as my "day job!" I was hooked!